The Doom of Lann
by MentallyDysfunctional
Summary: A dragon comes to Westeros, more terrible than any in the time of Aegon the Conqueror. Gold calls him, for all such serpents are creatures of greed, and only one place in Westeros holds the riches to slake his lust... Random boredom induced one-shot.


I had the dawn watch. The night's dying fog still sat in whisps over sleeping Lannisport, lovely and eerie as the horizon grew red. I griped of course, like I always did. The knee was acting up again and mornings were always misery. A belly full of wine and hot porridge made the rounds easier.

We heard it, felt it, before it was ever seen. The wind picked up on a whim, as it often did, through the sea seemed no worse for it. None of us could have known. The knee ached all the more. The gust took on a queer sound, like a thousand bodkins cutting through the air. No storm so terrible ever blew from the Sunset Sea.

I remember the wine had caught up with me. I had just unbuttoned below to wash down out the outer wall, cursing the wind all the while. Then the docks erupted in flame. A few of us must've lept a clean foot into the air. Someone howled the alarm, there was scrambling and clattering of arms, all pointless. Mere moments later another jet of flame tore a shining gash into the homes and warehouses of Lannisport.

We could begin to see him now, in glimpses. A moment's flash through pillars of smoke, lit by the fires he kindled, like a red knife cutting the throat of the city. He would turn and wheel and breath again, each pass and flap of the wing hammering us with that hurricane wind, rank with the stench of charred ruin. It took him no time at all to do what other armies had fought for years to ahceive. Lannisport burned, serrandaded by a deafening roar no Lannister lion could have matched. I almost refused to beleive what my eyes forced me to see, a serpent on the wing, belching red death in all its horrible glory, a tapestry given life. We love the songs because the beasts they talk of are just words. You don't see them, smell their breath or the carnage they leave behind. You aren't left stiff and dumbstruck pissing all over yourself because of a song.

He wanted more. You could almost feel his eyes as they turned in that massive crimson skull, turned toward you, toward the next hearth condemned to his desolation. The dawn grew brighter, joining the red light of city's pyre. I saw him, plain as I see you, great wings against the sky, like a lion circling wounded prey. He seemed to hang there for a moment, like the hand of the Stranger hovering over a dying man. Then down he came. He tore into the battlements on the far side of the keep, casting towers of flame and shattered stone on high. I didn't have to be standing there to know what passed. Guardsman, knight, courtier and servant, some fought, most ran. All died. All burned. All the while the Rock thundered with the sound of the beast, burrowing, rending, toward the heart of the Rock, and gold laden vaults within. I never had the chance to try my steel against him. Seven be praised. Had I, I would not be here to speak of it. Some could call me craven for that. Some have. My answer is always the same. I point West, recommend an armourer, and then a septon.

Even among those of us who kept our wits, we chose the only thing we could do. We fled. Some of us made our way to the fringes of the inferno that was Lannisport, scraping in vain to aid the unlucky few who survived. The thrashing, screaming ruins of men and women we pulled from the water would have been better taken whole by the flames. Flesh slid off their bones in our hands in masses of black and pink and red. The whole mess smelled of pork, well done. I was wretching long after my belly had been emptied.

As the light of the sun met the firelight of Lannisport, our eyes were all torn back to Casterly rock, crumbling, half afire. The stones beneath our feet seemed to shake to the roots of the earth, trumpeted by a roaring that took the sound of terrible laughter. I will go to my grave with that sound in my ears. No song ever spoke of a beast that laughed like a man, not in the time of the old Targaryens, nor before. It bore with it tidings of doom, a herald that called all the world to hear.

A dragon had returned to Westeros, and The Rock was his.

_ \- Testament of Loyle Halfhook, former retainer of House Lannister, as transcribed by Maester Logan of Oldtowne, being an account of the first appearance of The Burner of the West, the Golden Wyrm, the Doom of Lann, lately identified in his own voice as Smaug, the Terrible, Prince of Dragons, the great calamity of our age. May the Seven be merciful._


End file.
